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At the age of 50, I semi-retired from traditional employment and transitioned to being a full-time artist. I have the pleasure of spending every day in Birdsong Studio doing what I love. This blog was started almost a decade ago as a public accountability mechanism for a weight loss intention. It has grown into a number of different directions over the years. I hope you enjoy it.

Bye bye landline

As far back as I can remember, the home phone was an integral part of the landscape. It was the connector to family, friends, things we needed to find out and everything that happened outside of a 50-foot radius out our front door. The numbers I dialed as a kid still resonate: 2-2426, 2-3795, 2-2924 - we were a pretty small town; only 5-digits were required.

Going through the teenage years was a challenge with 5 siblings and one phone line.

"Get off the phone!" Dad would yell up the stairs, expecting an all-important call to go to work. He was a railway man who worked out of Canora, a 30-minute drive away, and the phone was his lifeline to earning a living.

Moving away from home and getting that first house phone was a big deal - I'm a real man now, I thought to myself. Bouncing from job to job and province to province, that phone number changed a few times in the early years of my career. I have no memory of any of them now.

Outside of the phone number for the house in which I grew up in and where my parents still live, the number we had for this house has been with me the longest, almost 16 years. We said goodbye to it this week. From now on, we will rely on cell phone technology for all of our family's communication needs. The bandaid has been ripped off, as it were.

I get the sense we might be behind the times, one of the last families to make this inevitable switch. Maybe I'm wrong.

From the old rotary to the bright orange touch-tone to the cordless handhelds, there has always been a phone in my life that was connected in some way to the wires running through our home. That is no longer the case. Maybe, just maybe, I've arrived in the 21st Century.

A Fort McMurray based artist specializing in wild colour portraits, Russell is also Director of Communications and Community Impact with The United Way of Fort McMurray. He is also a facilitator, freelance writer, blogger, actor, community builder, husband and father.